Detainee affair won't go away

After trying to stonewall, Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems to have concluded, however reluctantly, that the Afghan detainee scandal isn't going to fade away. Yesterday the Conservatives promised to reconvene the special Commons committee that has been digging into the affair when Parliament resumes next week.

After trying to stonewall, Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems to have concluded, however reluctantly, that the Afghan detainee scandal isn't going to fade away. Yesterday the Conservatives promised to reconvene the special Commons committee that has been digging into the affair when Parliament resumes next week.

That's a good thing. Otherwise Parliament might have held the government in contempt. It still could, unless the Conservatives produce files the committee has demanded to decide whether Canadian troops in 2006 and 2007 handed prisoners to the Afghan authorities in the knowledge they might be abused, or worse.

A lot of light has been shed on this since Harper tried to shrug it off as a non-story when it first surfaced publicly. "We have no evidence that supports the allegations," he told the Commons on April 24, 2007. But Ottawa had plenty of reason to worry, it turns out.

Canadian diplomats, including Richard Colvin, plus others in the field had sent six reports in 2006 warning that Afghan jails were rife with torture, executions and disappearances. The United Nations cited "frequent" reports of torture. And in 2006 Canadian troops had to rescue a detainee they had turned over to the Afghan security forces, after he had been beaten up.

We now wonder whether the government and military wilfully ignored credible concerns about abuse until media reports in 2007 forced them to devise a better transfer policy.

The stakes for Canada's troops and national image were high.

Brig.-Gen. Ken Watkin, Canada's judge advocate general (top military lawyer), drove home that point in a memo on May 22, 2007, soon after the transfer policy was tightened. He reminded Gen. Rick Hillier, then chief of defence staff, and the ranks that they were duty-bound to "prevent or repress" prisoner abuse and to report it. He also warned that they risked "criminal liability" for failing to act.

That strong warning, unearthed by Star reporter Richard. J. Brennan this week, is one the Afghan committee will want to examine, along with other documents Ottawa has been reluctant to produce. They include Colvin's memos, cabinet minutes and foreign ministry files. We need to know what Ottawa knew and when. There's no point resurrecting the committee unless it has access to the paper trail.

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